AUSTRALIA moved yesterday to ban Canadian cattle imports after a reported case of BSE.

Quarantine officials tracked down all Canadian breeding cattle imported into Australia and banned further imports.

The announcement of the first known case in a decade of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in North America, which was confirmed by a British laboratory, had authorities in cattle-producing countries around the world scrambling to track down any links with Canadian beef.

Australia imports only breeding cattle from Canada and quarantine officials moved quickly to find them, said Tim Langmead, a spokesman for the federal agriculture minister.

"They have all been traced, we know where they are and it is likely they will be placed under lifetime quarantine," said Langmead. "We will obviously suspend any further imports of live breeder cattle from Canada."

Langmead was not able to say how many breeder cattle had been traced or the number imported annually. He said Australia exported beef and beef products to Canada but did not buy any cattle meat products from there that could be susceptible to the disease.

New Zealand was also tracing Canadian cattle imports.

Canadian agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief told a news conference in Edmonton that the infected cow, an eight-year-old from a farm in northern Alberta, was slaughtered on January 31 because it was believed to have pneumonia.

He stressed the diseased animal never reached human or animal consumption, the known method of spreading the infection. It cannot be transmitted between live animals.

The illness is thought to cause the fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans who eat infected meat.

Meanwhile, the Canadian announcement left restaurant and food industries trying to reassure consumers they had nothing to fear.

"This one confirmed cow has no connection with McDonald's Canada," said a statement by the restaurant chain. Other ular outlets issued similar assurances.